Jump, ni**er, jump!

The sad spectacle of media crucifixion of Barack Obama continues. When Obama first responded to the media/Clintonite uproar over the rev. Jeremiah Wright with his speech on racism, he took the high road. Making an emotional and intellectual appeal for clarity and realism on the subject of race, Obama's Philadelphia speech was compared by the media to JFK and MLK. For a moment.

But the manufactured Wright "controversy" did not end there. The attacks continued. Not in a way that actually debated anything said by Rev. Wright, or any position actually held by Obama, but in the way of insinuation and implication. Obama was even asked how patriotic Wright actually was.

I've heard and read some very thoughtful explorations of this subject. Usually, the more of Rev. Wright's sermonizing and speechifying they play the better and better he sounds. I agree with most everything Ive heard him say, and that which I don't agree with, I completely understand why he would say.

But then Wright came out of his period of silence, and repeated many of the things he had said before. And the media, beholden to the corrupt political establishment that has bought and purchased it over the last few years, basically forgot everything Obama had said and started repeating the same old nonsense.

Nevermind that Hillary Clinton organizes a prayer breakfast led by a right-wing cultist, or attends a church that codifies and institutionalizes bigotry against gays. Nevermind that McCain sought out the endorsement of a super-rightwing nutcase preacher who, in addition to his anti-gay hatred, organizes Christians to support Israel to help bring the apocalypse closer. Nevermind that the North Carolina governor pretty much used a mild form of the word "faggot" ("pansy") when he was endorsing Clinton and she offered no distance or protest.

But the media called Obama to eat shit and throw his former pastor under the bus. And sadly, that is what Obama did. "Jump!" they said. And he did. And now he will discover, I fear, that they just wanted to see if he would jump. They will continue to say "Jump! Ni**er! Jump!" and each time Obama will be sadly disappointed he's really not welcome at the party at all. The racism he hopes to transcend has just been mashed in his face.

I'm disappointed that Obama didn't find a way to transcend this circus of crucifixion. I don't know, of course, if it will be fatal to his campaign. I hope not. It doesn't change my support, which is as strongly qualified as it is strong. But if I was in Chicago, I know damned well I'd be trying to find where Jeremiah Wright was preaching now. I may not be a Christian but I do know who's on the side of the righteous.

God DAMN America.